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Harris v. City of Colorado Springs12/30/1993
Plaintiffs, Eric Harris and the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association (the Association), appeal the summary judgment entered in favor of defendants, City of Colorado Springs and Lorne C. Kramer, Chief of Police. We affirm.
Harris, who was employed by the City of Colorado Springs as a police officer, was involved in a traffic incident while off duty. For this he received two speeding citations. Harris was also ordered to appear and answer questions during an internal affairs investigation.
After advising Harris that any statements he made would not be used in any criminal prosecution, the Police Chief ordered Harris to take a polygraph examination relating to the traffic incident. Harris declined to do so. After a hearing, the City Manager terminated Harris for refusing to obey the Police Chief's order to take the polygraph examination, and this decision was upheld by the Colorado Springs Civil Service Commission.
Plaintiffs later sought a declaratory judgment that polygraph examinations could be ordered only in circumstances in which the off-duty conduct involved was specifically, directly, and narrowly related to the performance of a police officer's official duties. Both parties then filed motions for summary judgment.
They also stipulated that: (1) questions posed to a police officer during an internal affairs investigation in regard to the officer's off-duty conduct must be specifically, directly, and narrowly related to the performance of official duties, and (2) if the questions are specifically, directly, and narrowly related to the performance of official duties, then a police officer could be disciplined for failing to obey an order to take a polygraph examination regarding such questions.
In a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, the trial court determined as a matter of law that Harris' off-duty actions were specifically, directly, and narrowly related to the performance of his official duties. It held:
First and foremost, [Harris' passenger's] admission that they were 'horsing around' with an on-duty officer by the driving behavior here evinced an intent to interfere with the on-duty officer's performance of official duties. Driving at excessive speeds at night, engaging in eluding-type driving, and accelerating around cars in different lanes of traffic can hardly be described as evidence confirming a police officer's fitness to enforce the traffic laws of Colorado. And this is particularly so where, as here, Harris admitted that he had been drinking.
Second, the driving conduct here endangered not only Harris and [his passenger], but also [the police officer] and other pedestrians and drivers. When this incident happened, [the police officer] did not know that two police officers were behind these acts, yet Harris and [his passenger] knew they were doing these acts to a police officer. Such conduct certainly bears on Harris's fitness for public service.
Third, this is conduct by a sworn police officer whose duty it is to uphold the laws of Colorado. Police officers are by no means to be held to a standard of perfect conduct, yet they are charged with the performance of what must be the most difficult and dangerous job in public employment. Thus, the standard of their conduct is, by necessity, a high one by virtue of their duties and the respect afforded them as a result of their position in the community. The fact that several officers eventually responded to the scene and the anger and disappointment they obviously felt over Harris's actions, establishes that the deviation from a reasonable standard of care that even police officers would gauge themselves by was apparent here. If line of
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